What is Qualitative Analysis?
Qualitative analysis is a way to understand what people are thinking, based entirely on what
words people used to discuss what you’ve asked about (or actions you’ve observed).
There’s lots of ways to gather qualitative data: for example online questionnaires, but also
interviews, focus groups, and others which allow you to make observations about how people
feel about a topic.
Qualitative analysis is always subject to interpretation. No two analysts will arrive at the same
conclusion with the same data, but the purpose of a qualitative analysis is to think about the
critical elements behind people’s responses and qualify them into meaningful groupings or
categories that can be tested in a larger environment using quantitative techniques.
These categories are also called constructs. Constructs are a simple way to express a general
idea. Constructs have definition and boundaries that the analyst has to define based on their
interpretation of the data.
Once an analyst has defined the range and limits of all their constructs, they then map out how
the constructs they’ve defined relate to one another. This forms a model which can later be
rigorously tested with quantitative data.
The purpose of qualitative analysis therefore is to get a fairly solid idea about what a population
of people might be thinking, but it’s very important to know that the results of a qualitative
analysis are never conclusive nor generalizable.
Step 1: Read and code 2-3 interviews
The first step in a qualitative analysis is to read two or three interviews and begin to get some
general ideas about key topics that appear in those interviews. Print out the interviews and
write some of these ideas down right on the interviews. Use a pencil and maybe a highlighter.
These ideas will form the initial foundation of a code book, which is one of the key outputs of
qualitative analysis. Ideas should be simply phrased so they have meaning to you: two or three
words maximum.
After you’ve read through the first two or three interviews, read through them again, and write
codes next to the text that identify the ideas you’ve found. Simple abbreviations work fine, but
make sure you’ve written down what those abbreviations mean to you.
Step 2: Read the next 7 or 8 interviews
As you read the next group of interviews, think about the ideas you’ve already developed.
You’ll probably notice as you read the next group of interviews that the definitions for your
ideas change, perhaps substantially. This is perfectly natural and a part of the analysis process.
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How did your original definitions change?
What are the new limits or boundaries of your definitions?
Do you need to rename some of your ideas?
Are the interviews beginning to show you some relationships between constructs?
 In other words, does one condition cause another? Which condition or
conditions precede what other condition or conditions?
From reading this group of interviews you should enhance and revise your construct definitions.
You will need to develop better definitions for your constructs and perhaps even rename them.
Don’t forget to update your abbreviation list for each construct.
You may also identify new constructs which didn’t appear in the first set of interviews. Write
these ideas down, define them, and provide a code for them.
After you’ve gone through this process, read all 10 interviews again and recode the text using
the new constructs you’ve developed. Make sure you highlight the text in each interview that
provides evidence to support your construct definitions.
You may find that after rereading you may have to revise your constructs again. This is also part
of the process. Revise your constructs and definitions, and recode the first 10 interviews, until
you’re satisfied that you’ve captured the essence of those 10 interviews.
Step 3: Read the remaining interviews
As you read the next group of interviews, try to apply your codes to them. You will probably
find ways to consolidate some of your constructs. You may decide some constructs are no
longer valid, and that you have to define new constructs. This is a natural part of the process.
As you move through the remaining interviews, revise your constructs and definitions, and
recode the text until you believe you have captured the essence of the interviews.
Your objective is to:
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Capture the essence of ideas that are common among interviews
Define those ideas into meaningful constructs
Develop a code book that illustrates what you’ve uncovered
Define the relationships between constructs
Step 4: Apply your codebook
Using some kind of software (I recommend WEFT QDA, but Microsoft Word works ok too),
reread every interview and apply the codes you’ve developed to the data one code at a time.
You should highlight and capture key statements interviewees have made relative to the codes
you’ve developed.
It is very possible that further revision of your constructs may be necessary at this point, and
you should not hesitate to update your construct definitions or codes as needed.
Key questions you should be asking along the way:
Did I capture everything that’s important to the people in the interviews?
Do my definitions fit the data?
How do people in the interviews view the relationship between the constructs you’ve
defined?
Step 5: Your final code book and building a model
At this stage you should have what you believe is the perfect code book that captures the
essence of everything your interviews told you.
You should also have coded the interviews so that you can provide text evidence from at least
three interviews that directly support the definition of each construct.
Draw out your proposed model that shows the relationship between constructs.
Which constructs cause other constructs?
The causes should go on the left of your model, and the effects should go on the right, but to
make yourself clear, draw arrows from each cause to each effect. It’s possible that there are
multiple causes for a single effect.
It’s also possible that some of your cause constructs might be modified by an intermediate
construct before it gets to the outcome. For example, you might find that watching TV (cause)
causes laziness (effect) in some people but ONLY if the people watching TV aren’t watching the
financial news (the filter or moderating construct).
Step 6: Write a brief report detailing your findings
You need to explain to others what you’ve found in a brief report. That report should minimally
include:
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Your constructs
Definitions for your constructs
Direct text evidence from the interviews that validate your construct definitions
Your final code book
Your proposed model
And last of all you need to develop some propositions.
What is a proposition?
A proposition is a hypothetical statement that demonstrates what you think the general
population thinks about the relationship between your constructs as you’ve defined them in
your model.
For example you might propose:
Proposition 1: People who watch TV tend to be more lazy than people who don’t watch TV.
Proposition 2: People who watch financial news tend to be less lazy than people who watch
other programs.
Proposition 3: People who watch financial news tend to be less lazy than people who don’t
watch TV at all.
Are any of these propositions true?
Maybe.
The next step then is to test your model, which requires designing quantitative questions for a
bigger group of people.